January 2011 archive

For the past five days, Egyptians have been in the streets protesting, calling for President Mubarak, who has served for thirty years, to step down.  It is a very big story.  Print media, understandably have trouble keeping up with it because so much is happening so quickly in so many places.  Putting up a written story takes time, time to write, time to edit, time to post.  Even if you’re lightning fast, print media (and the part of them that is on the Internet) aren’t built for this kind of speed.  But what about television?

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Robert Naiman: Mohamed ElBaradei: ‘If Not Now, When?’

If Western leaders, who have backed the dictator Mubarak for 30 years, cannot stand before the Egyptian people today and say unequivocally, “we support your right of national self-determination,” when can they do it?

That’s the question that Egyptian democracy leader and Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei has put before Western leaders today.

Speaking to the Guardian in Cairo, before the planned protests today, ElBaradei stepped up his calls for Western leaders to explicitly condemn Mubarak, who, as the Guardian noted, has been a close ally of the US.

Dana Milbank: Glenn Beck vs. the rabbis

After MSNBC let go Keith Olbermann last week, Glenn Beck couldn’t resist celebrating. “Keith Olbermann is the biggest pain in the ass in the world,” he judged.

But Olbermann’s departure really should give Beck pause: With political speech coming under new scrutiny, how much longer can Beck’s brutal routine continue at Fox News?

The latest omen of Beck’s end times came on Thursday — Holocaust Remembrance Day — when 400 rabbis representing all four branches of American Judaism took out an ad demanding that Beck be sanctioned for “monstrous” and “beyond repugnant” use of “anti-Semitic imagery” in going after Holocaust survivor George Soros.

A Fox News spokesman brushed off the complaint in the usual fashion, attributing it to a “Soros-backed left-wing political organization.” But that’s not going to fly: The statement’s signatories included the chief executive of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and his predecessor, the dean of the conservative Jewish Theological Seminary rabbinical school, and a number of orthodox rabbis.

John Nichols: Biden Stakes a Place on the Wrong Side of History: Vice President Denies Mubarak Is a Dictator

This has not been a good week for the Obama administration, at least when it comes to responses to the popular revolt that has swept Egypt

First, President Obama failed to make mention the mass street demonstrations in Cairo and other Egyptian Tuesday in his State of the Union Address. No one expected the president to declare his solidarity with the Egyptian people. . . . .

At least Obama’s silence allowed him to avoid saying something he would soon regret.

That’s not the case with Vice President Joe Biden.

Asked about developments in Egypt during a PBS NewsHour interview this week, Biden said Mubarak should retain his grip on power.

The vice president also rejected the use of the term “dictator” to describe the Egyptian strongman who has held power for three decades, banned political parties, jailed opponents, censored the press, groomed his son for dynastic succession and unilaterally dissolved and appointed governments.

Something Very Serious People never talk about is how most of the complexity of the Tax Code is there specifically to provide monetary entitlements to the Extremely Wealthy and our Corporate Citizens.

This post by masaccio about Turn Left Racing caught my eye and is well worth reading in full even if it is a little technical and wonky at points.

Let’s Go Racing for Loopholes – Motorsports Tax Scam Wins a Grafty

By: masaccio, Firedog Lake

Friday January 28, 2011 2:28 pm

There is a special rule for Motorsports Entertainment Complexes, allowing their buildings, grandstands, parking lots and other improvements to be written off over 7 years. IRC § 168(e)(3)(c)(ii). To write the limitation so that it mainly affected auto race tracks, as opposed to dog tracks, took 213 words in IRC § 168(i)(15). The provision was set to expire December 31, 2009, but it was extended to 2011 by § 738 of the Obama Tax Capitulation Act of 2010, more politely known as Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010.

One of the fun parts of tax issues is to see who benefits from a loophole. The obvious answer is International Speedway Corporation, the publicly held company that owns a bunch of NASCAR tracks, including Daytona, Talladega, Michigan International, Darlington and Watkins Glen.

Now the Very Serious People will tell you these Tax Breaks are stimulative, that they create economic demand and jobs and by the Miracle of the discredited Trickle Down Voodoo Supply Side Economics of the last 30 years they somehow benefit you.

This is a bald faced LIE!

I refuse to believe that the availability of this deduction made the slightest difference in the budgeting decisions of International Speedway Corporation. This budget was set with full knowledge that the loophole would expire at the end of 2009, and projects were going forward without the exemption. The loophole did not create a single job. The extension is a pure gift to the company.

I call it a Miracle because it’s supernatural.  There’s not one shred of evidence that supports it, it’s just one of those things you take on faith like any true believing Jihadi Fundamentalist.  No more scientific than burnt offerings to Mammon.

I also liked the editor’s note-

(A)nother post in Firedoglake’s semi-regular series exposing and exploring ways in which the federal government spends vast sums or forsakes vital revenue in a perpetual, profligate and pathetic quest to assure corporate America that the elected representatives of we the people are really, truly, madly, deeply “business friendly.” With each story, we hope to highlight another government giveaway, tax break, or loophole handcrafted by lawmakers and lobbyists to keep the powerful powerful and make the rich richer. If the reverse Robin Hoodism rises to special heights, we will present it with the FDL Wealthy Welfare Award-or, as we have taken to calling it back here, The Grafty.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

January 29 is the 29th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 336 days remaining until the end of the year (337 in leap years).

On this day in 1845, Edgar Allan Poe’s famous poem “The Raven,” beginning “Once upon a midnight dreary,” is published on this day in the New York Evening Mirror.

“The Raven” is a narrative poem by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in January 1845. It is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a talking raven’s mysterious visit to a distraught lover, tracing the man’s slow descent into madness. The lover, often identified as being a student, is lamenting the loss of his love, Lenore. Sitting on a bust of Pallas, the raven seems to further instigate his distress with its constant repetition of the word “Nevermore”. The poem makes use of a number of folk and classical references.

Poe claimed to have written the poem very logically and methodically, intending to create a poem that would appeal to both critical and popular tastes, as he explained in his 1846 follow-up essay “The Philosophy of Composition”. The poem was inspired in part by a talking raven in the novel Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of ‘Eighty by Charles Dickens. Poe borrows the complex rhythm and meter of Elizabeth Barrett‘s poem “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship”, and makes use of internal rhyme as well as alliteration throughout.

A people defies its dictator, and a nation’s future is in the balance  

A brutal regime is fighting, bloodily, for its life. Robert Fisk reports from the streets of Cairo



It might be the end. It is certainly the beginning of the end. Across Egypt, tens of thousands of Arabs braved tear gas, water cannons, stun grenades and live fire yesterday to demand the removal of Hosni Mubarak after more than 30 years of dictatorship.

And as Cairo lay drenched under clouds of tear gas from thousands of canisters fired into dense crowds by riot police, it looked as if his rule was nearing its finish. None of us on the streets of Cairo yesterday even knew where Mubarak – who would later appear on television to dismiss his cabinet – was. And I didn’t find anyone who cared.

This piece was partially inspired by a conversation that I had with Kossack smileycreek in the comments after my most recent Pique the Geek installment.  That commentor’s sig line included words to the effect that all that the Republicans have is fear.

To a point I agree with that, but I would also add greed to it.  Greed has a component of fear in it, since greedy people always have the fear that they will not get enough of whatever their particular greed includes, but is enough of a distinct desire as to be included separately.

On Wednesday past, I logged all of the adverts on two TeeVee shows, Glenn Beck from the FOX “News” Channel, and The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC.  I believe that most would agree that one is pretty right wing, and the other pretty left wing.

Meh.  If you can get out a good night for a date.

You are too old and fat to be jumping horses.

• AMC– True Grit (I don’t understand why they ever remade this)
• Bravo– Jerry Maguire
• Disney– Good Luck Charlie Snow Show
• Discovery– Gold Rush (last week’s and new), Flying Wild (premier)
• E!– The Soup (premier)
• ESPN– Winter X Games; Hoopies, Celtics @ Suns
• ESPN2– Milrose Games
• FX– Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who!, Kung Fu Panda
• National Geographic– Dog Whisperer (premier)
• Nick– An hour of new Spongebob
• Oxygen– Titanic x 2
• Sci Fi– Being Human (Series Premier repeat)
• Style– Garden State
• TBS– Get Smart (Steve Carell is just awful, in everything)
• Turner Classic– Tunes of Glory, The Odessa File (Ronald Neame night)
• TLC– Say Yes to the Dress marathon (with premier)
• TNT– The Dark Night
• Toon– Clone Wars (premier of Part 1 of the 3 Part Mortis story arc)
• VH1– Ghostbusters

You’re gonna endanger us, you’re gonna endanger our client – the nice lady, who paid us in advance, before she became a dog…

Not necessarily. There’s definitely a *very slim* chance we’ll survive.

I love this plan! I’m excited to be a part of it! LET’S DO IT!

Later-

An American without ice in his drink is unthinkable, if not unconstitutional!

…

Yours was gin and ginger ale, right?

Mine was NEVER gin and ginger ale. Montrochet ’69, right next to the beer.

• AMC– El Dorado
• Bravo– Something’s Gotta Give
• Comedy– Eddie Murphy Raw
• Disney– Phineas and Ferb
• FX– Lights Out (this week’s)
• Spike– Days of Thunder
• TBS– Legally Blonde
• Turner Classic– Hopscotch (genuinely good and horribly under exposed caper flick with Walter Matthau and Glenda Jackson, you should set your VCR)
• TNT– Lethal Weapon, The Negotiator
• USA– Chaos

Dave in repeats from 1/13.

And at the end, everybody sued me. Claiming I whipped they ass. I’m 5ft 10in, I weigh 180lbs. I cannot whip a disco’s ass by myself.

Zap2it TV Listings, Yahoo TV Listings

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

Now with 54 Top Stories.

1 Clashes in Tunisia as new cabinet sworn in

by Ines Bel Aiba, AFP

2 hrs 2 mins ago

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Paul Krugman: Their Own Private Europe

President Obama’s State of the Union address was a ho-hum affair. But the official Republican response, from Representative Paul Ryan, was really interesting. And I don’t mean that in a good way.

Mr. Ryan made highly dubious assertions about employment, health care and more. But what caught my eye, when I read the transcript, was what he said about other countries: “Just take a look at what’s happening to Greece, Ireland, the United Kingdom and other nations in Europe. They didn’t act soon enough; and now their governments have been forced to impose painful austerity measures: large benefit cuts to seniors and huge tax increases on everybody.”

Johann Hari: How Can Conservatives Object to Protecting Gay Kids?

I am exhausted. I have spent all week trying to brainwash small children into being gay, by relentlessly inserting homosexuality into their math, geography and science lessons. Their little eyes widened when the gay algebra lesson started, but it worked: Their concept of “normal sexual behavior” has been successfully destroyed. It’s all part of the program brilliantly coordinated by the Homintern to imposed The Gay Agenda on Every Aspect of Life.

That, at least, is what you would believe if you had read some of Britain’s bestselling newspapers this week, or listened to some of our most prominent Conservative politicians. The headlines were filled with fury. The Conservative Member of Parliament Richard Drax said gays were trying to impose “questionable sexual standards” on kids, while a right-wing newspaper said we were mounting a massive “abuse of childhood.”

Here’s what is actually happening — with plenty of lessons for the U.S. A detailed study by the Schools Health Education Unit found that in Britain today, 70 percent of gay children get bullied, 41 percent get beaten up, and 17 percent get told at some point in their childhood that they are going to be killed. The evidence suggests the situation in the U.S. is just as bad.

Amy Wilentz: Haiti: Not for Amateurs

Lost in the uproar over the return of Jean-Claude Duvalier to Haiti and his to-ing and fro-ing from hotel to courthouse to hotel to mountain home, is the much more important political crisis. On election day in November, only 22.3 percent of Haiti’s eligible voters cast their ballots in what turned out to be an election plagued with fraud. The reason for the low turnout was apathy, coupled with the catastrophic loss of identity papers in the earthquake of January 2010. Given the miserable conditions of so many Haitians since the earthquake, the anemic turnout provided resounding evidence that Haitians don’t believe their vote matters.

And they are right. Many parties were kept out, including the popular party of Haiti’s first freely and fairly elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who has been living in exile in South Africa since a coup backed by the international community forced him from power in 2004. Many see post-Duvalier Haitian politics as a back-and-forth between the forces who support Duvalier, a prototypical right-wing strongman, and those who support Aristide, theoretically a leftist prodemocracy leader. Although this analysis is grossly simplistic, it is also partly true.

News is breaking extremely fast. Both Al Jazeera and CNN are transmitting live images. You can watch the Al Jazeera broadcast live on line. Protests broken out all over Egypt and there are tanks on the streets of Cairo. Reports are that the police have withdrawn from the Alexandria.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, arrived in Egypt yesterday and it is being reported by numerous news agencies that he has been placed under house arrest

As I am writing this, the commentator is reporting that state security has entered Al Jeezera’s Cairo building in an attempt to shut down their feed. Communications have been hampered in the building. The cutting of cell phone connections and the Internet blackout the past three days is unprecedented and reporters and crews are missing, as per live reports.

It is prayer time and the protesters are organizing for evening prayer and the riot police has back off to give them time to pray.

There are reports of at least one person killed in Cairo and a curfew has been imposed for 6 PM Egyptian time (11 AM EST).

This is a video of clashes on a bridge that took place earlier today.

UP dates will continue as they happen.

Mishima’s live blog

I’ve been awake for 22 hours I’m going to bed- mishima

Up Date #1: CNN reports that the Egyptian Army has been ordered to take over the security from the police.

Up Date #2: The New York Times has continuous up dates on the protests as they receive them.

Egyptian President is expected to give a live address.

Up Date #3: A curfew went into effect at 6 PM (11 AM) and is being ignored.

Al Jazeera reports that 5 Army tanks have entered Cairo as protesters take over security police armored personnel carriers and police stations, setting them on fire.

Further up dates and videos will be below the fold.